Tackling the bigger questions

Expat life is full of discoveries. I am particularly fond of the British phrase, “I’ll have a think about that.” It implies deliberation, as though one intends to set aside dedicated time, perhaps by a fire with a long clay pipe, to give consideration to this one matter alone.

Of course, I eventually came to realise that this is actually just a way of saying “No” without having to utter that blunt little two-letter word out loud. The truth is though, that thinking does take time and effort – something all too easy to forget in our increasingly rapid, reactive, and information-saturated world.

In the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology, we encourage people to think through the implications of their commitments as soon as possible. This means that I often find myself supporting people through the important but sometimes difficult process of thinking through what things mean to them in their life, and what they want to do. Occasionally, they get stuck.

“Is it actionable?”

“Um… maybe?”

“What’s the next action?”

(Whimpering:) “I really don’t know.”

If you have ever found yourself here, baffled in your attempt to clarify and organise some new input (an email, a bill, a picture of an old girlfriend), here is the question that invariably gets people un-stuck:

“Do you need more time, or more information?”

Sometimes, things are yet to play out externally; other times, you need to “mull it over” or let the ideas percolate for awhile. Rather than simply throwing up your hands and hoping to reach resolution later, however, we suggest you add a reminder in your calendar so that you pick up the item and decide on it after an appropriate amount of time has passed. We also recommend that if there is any deadline attached to this situation, you likewise get that into your diary.

Other times, you need more information. So, where is it? Who has it? What would it look like if you were to go after that information right now? Usually, describing what that looks like becomes a great way to state the very next action, which you can then record into your list of actions (or your calendar, if time-specific) to get going and get un-stuck.

Either way, answering this question leads to something in your system that will help “trigger” the next step with this situation – be it gathering data from a colleague or just picking it up a week from now when some dust has settled.

One friend keeps an @tea context for this – items that, unlike those in the @someday/maybe context, are active commitments – but need a bit of thought over a cup of tea before taking further next steps.

Some of the really big questions never end – and these I record as Areas of Focus (such as health, family, finances), which I review periodically as a way to generate new projects or actions. (For more on Areas of Focus, read this blog.)

However you choose to tackle those bigger (sometimes thornier) questions, the key is to record something concrete in your system by way of a clear next step, so that you are not brushing anyone off (including yourself) by deferring it, but acknowledging that indeed, sometimes the right decisions require more than what you have available at that moment when you are processing your inbox.

So, how about you? What are your strategies for dealing with some of the bigger questions or “grey areas” that come your way? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.

Related

4 Comments

Gillian
on May 26, 2016 at 5:33 pm

Robert – I like that you bring up the topic of what to do when you are stuck. I often need more time to just think about what to do next but it’s going to take more than two minutes to review all the data and make a decision. So I need to get it into my system. In those cases I put a next action that basically says I need to ‘figure out’ what to do next. When I see the words figure out in my to do list, I know that’s code for I have no idea what my next action is on that topic. But I don’t have to stress about it because it’s in my system to think through it and plan out my next step.

One thing that helps me with those “figure out” types of actions is to essentially describe (for my future self) what I’ll be doing to figure it out. For example, “draft a mind-map about…”, “do some online research into…”, “talk to so-and-so for their opinion on…” — those kinds of things often help me decide where the next action should go (@anywhere, @computer, @agenda, etc.) so that I can pick up my “figure out” activity in the right context when ready.

I am with Gillian on this one – I will enter a Next Action of “Brainstorm” if I have all the information I think I need and I just need much more than two minutes to think through different scenarios of the consequences of choosing A, B or C. What are the costs and benefits of each choice ? Do I have enough resource (time, money …) to execute any or all of these choices ? How does the timeline fit in with my other plans ? In most of these situations I find around 30 minutes will either make the choice clear – or it will highlight what further information I need in order to make a final decision.

Those are great questions to ask, Jonathan. You might even consider listing them as a kind of “template” or “checklist” for brainstorming to trigger your thinking (assuming many of the same ones are relevant each time). The “Incompletion Trigger Lists” as well as the “Project Trigger List” in the GTD Methodology Guides provide generic ones for thinking about big projects and different areas of focus in one’s life. But customising them to specific activities like brainstorming seems like something you could use to really make the process your own. Good stuff.